World's Solo Drumming Competition

Happy Tuesday everybody, it's grade 2 band night so I'm in a go get 'em mood.

Wanted to do a brief report on the World Solo Drumming this weekend in Glasgow. Some pretty awesome results, and it's always an exciting weekend for us drummers.

The snare corp was watching intently as former member Dave Bowman crossed the pond again to compete against the very best. Dave played at the World's last year in a very tough qualifying class, and though he learned a lot didn't manage to get through to the semi's.

I was very pleased this year when, sitting at Famous Dave's Restaurant in Sioux Falls, my crackberry reported the days results and Dave had managed to move up the list a bit.

Still this year wasn't quite his year, missing the semi-finals by a few points, but I feel that progress is everything and Dave managed to move up to a 12th place finish in his qualifier beating out 5 other drummers. Well done!!!

The big story of course this year was current champion Barry Wilson (Scottish Power Pipe Band) winning his, count it, THIRD consecutive World Championship. An incredible feat.

I know when we were in Scotland last year we had the opportunity to watch Barry "jam" with Chris Armstrong at the Lord Todd drumming recital. That man can perform some gravity bending rudiments and always seems to remain musical. Small wonder he's our champion again this year.

Canadian Blair Brown (SFU) found his way into the top 6, finishing 4th overall. This is a great result and shows some of the depth SFU has in their corp with lead drummer Reid Maxwell landing 6th place. Gordon Lee also from SFU came in 8th overall. If one scrolls through the semi-finals you find the SFU name scatterred all over with Derek Cooper, Tano Martone, our own Dave Bowman, and many others competing.

Two other worthy notes are Steven McWhirter (Inverary and District) and Gordon J. Brown (Boghall and Bathgate) gaining 2nd and 3rd place finishes respectively. Having Steven in the mix for the final must be like jumping in a muddy pool with an alligator, he can surface and bite you at any time and you won't even see it.

All in all a great contest. I'm really looking forward to the videos and audio of various plays to come out.

That's it for me today, I'll be back tomorrow with an update from tonight's practice.

Cheers

Sean